I-Function, Pain And Memory :: Biology Essays Research Papers

I-Function, Pain And Memory Pain is capable of leaving a long lasting effect on ones life and in ones memory. It can literally "change" who "you" are. "You" change according to the input that your nervous system receives and reacts to. Permanent changes can be seen in long-term memories with the manufacturing of new proteins stored in the memory that account for the inputs. Pain can be an extremely powerful input to the nervous system with varying effects that could lay dormant for many years, stored in long-term memory. Several questions that could be posed concerning pain and long term memory involve the I-function. Can the I-function be turned off during a painful experience, but still be stored in long-term memory, able to be recalled later such as under hypnosis? Could pain cause a separation of the I-function from the physical self or a loss of ones sense of self? Many examples of pain can be quickly imagined and recalled from long or short-term memory. Certain types of pain reside deep inside the stored memory in the brain and require a special state of consciousness to bring out those memories. Pain memories associated with various actions such as rape and circumcision have been found to exist in long term memory. These painful experiences at different stages in life are separate in the way that they are remembered and recalled, but both involve feelings later of a physical violation and mental trauma due to the lack of consent. Circumcision, the removal of the foreskin over the penis, was long thought to be a painless experience for an infant and was treated accordingly with little or no anesthesia. Most of the times during the surgical procedure, the babies cry very forcefully. This was for a long time thought to be normal and healthy. Other times, they lie still without making a sound from either shock or the act of passing out from the pain (1). This unresponsiveness was always thought to be from undeveloped pain receptors, or Nociceptors in the Somatosensory system (2) . These pain receptors send information to the spinal cord, then to the brain stem, thalamus, and somatosensory cortex. Modulation can occur through these pathways by way of suppression using large mechanosensitive fibers that enter the spinal cord or by endorphine release. This modulation involves changing the information about the pain to lessen the perception of its magnitude. I-Function, Pain And Memory :: Biology Essays Research Papers I-Function, Pain And Memory Pain is capable of leaving a long lasting effect on ones life and in ones memory. It can literally "change" who "you" are. "You" change according to the input that your nervous system receives and reacts to. Permanent changes can be seen in long-term memories with the manufacturing of new proteins stored in the memory that account for the inputs. Pain can be an extremely powerful input to the nervous system with varying effects that could lay dormant for many years, stored in long-term memory. Several questions that could be posed concerning pain and long term memory involve the I-function. Can the I-function be turned off during a painful experience, but still be stored in long-term memory, able to be recalled later such as under hypnosis? Could pain cause a separation of the I-function from the physical self or a loss of ones sense of self? Many examples of pain can be quickly imagined and recalled from long or short-term memory. Certain types of pain reside deep inside the stored memory in the brain and require a special state of consciousness to bring out those memories. Pain memories associated with various actions such as rape and circumcision have been found to exist in long term memory. These painful experiences at different stages in life are separate in the way that they are remembered and recalled, but both involve feelings later of a physical violation and mental trauma due to the lack of consent. Circumcision, the removal of the foreskin over the penis, was long thought to be a painless experience for an infant and was treated accordingly with little or no anesthesia. Most of the times during the surgical procedure, the babies cry very forcefully. This was for a long time thought to be normal and healthy. Other times, they lie still without making a sound from either shock or the act of passing out from the pain (1). This unresponsiveness was always thought to be from undeveloped pain receptors, or Nociceptors in the Somatosensory system (2) . These pain receptors send information to the spinal cord, then to the brain stem, thalamus, and somatosensory cortex. Modulation can occur through these pathways by way of suppression using large mechanosensitive fibers that enter the spinal cord or by endorphine release. This modulation involves changing the information about the pain to lessen the perception of its magnitude.